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herself bitterly for refusing to take him into her home, but at the time she had still been childless, and she had had some crazy fear that William would try to make Geoffrey heir to her father's lands and would come no more to her bed. Now she had a son of her own, and she could also judge her husband more rationally. She had been a fool to hate that poor woman, dead before Ela herself had married William, and to transfer her spiteas she had doneto the innocent child was unforgiveable. |
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William had accepted her refusal to take his bastard into her care without argument, but he had not really forgiven hernot until he saw the boy at Alinor's wedding. That was another debt Lady Ela owed Lord Ian and his wife. Her eyes slid sideways toward her brother-in-law. How she hated him! Sometimes when she and William sat beside John at state dinners, she became really ill with the passion of hate that burned in her. Somehow, someday, she would show William what that creature really was. Somehow, someday, she would destroy that doting love that still saw only an unhappy baby brother instead of the poisonous viper into which the child had grown. William still sought to save John from himself, but it was far too late for that. There was nothing left to save. |
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Meanwhile, Alinor was saying comfortingly to Geoffrey, "I watched most carefully. Lord Ian has taken no fatal hurt, I promise you." |
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The promise was easy enough to redeem. When she and Geoffrey arrived, Ian was already sitting on a campstool, cheerfully arguing with Salisbury and Pembroke about attending the king's feast that evening. |
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"What?" he was protesting, "will you deprive me of receiving in person the one and only tourney prize I am ever likely to achieve?" |
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His lips were smiling, but when his eyes moved to Alinor, their expression curbed the hot speech she was about to utter. Later that night, she called herself a |
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